Ja­maica face Canada in Un­der-17 friendly games

THE JA­MAICA Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion (JFF) has fi­nalised plans for two friendly in­ter­na­tional games be­tween Ja­maica’s Un­der-17 and Canada’s Un­der-17 team here later this month.

Fol­low­ing on the heels of two friendly games against the United States of Amer­ica (USA), which Ja­maica lost 3-0 on Novem­ber 2 and 4-0 on Novem­ber 6, the Ja­maicans will con­tinue prepa­ra­tion for the CONCACAF Un­der-17 tour­na­ment next year that serves as a FIFA World Cup Un­der-17 qual­i­fi­ca­tion.

A re­lease from the JFF stated that: “Pres­i­dent of the Ja­maica Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion Cap­tain Ho­race Bur­rell is pleased to an­nounce that in keep­ing with the fed­er­a­tion’s com­mit­ment to give qual­ity prepa­ra­tion op­por­tu­ni­ties to the Na­tional Un­der17 team, Canada’s Na­tional Un­der-17 men’s team will be in Ja­maica Novem­ber 25-29 for two prac­tice games.”

The two teams will play at the Wem­b­ley Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence in Claren­don on Sunday, Novem­ber 27 and Winch­ester Park, St Ge­orge’s Col­lege, on Novem­ber 29.

ED­WARDS

“These games fol­low on the re­cent two in­ter­na­tional games in­volv­ing the USA Un­der 17 team which al­lowed the tech­ni­cal staff to see the Ja­maican team against qual­ity op­po­si­tion as they pre­pare for the CONCACAF round of qual­i­fiers to be held in April 2017,” the re­lease con­cluded.

Ja­maica’s na­tional Un­der-17 head coach An­drew Ed­wards says that he is look­ing for­ward to what he ex­pects to be tough games against Canada.

“We know that Canada is an­other tough op­po­si­tion. They are not as good as the USA team, but they have a good pro­gramme and re­sources, so we are look­ing for­ward to both games,” Ed­wards told The Gleaner yes­ter­day.

“It is im­por­tant to show bet­ter re­sults than those against USA re­cently. The re­sults are al­ways a good morale boost, but we al­ways have aims and ob­jec­tives for these friendly games,” he also said.

Ed­wards in­di­cated that there won’t be a lot of changes for the up­com­ing friendly games against Canada. “We may be look­ing at a few new play­ers but not a lot for the games.”

Mean­while, the Canada soc­cer men’s na­tional Un­der-17 coach Paul Stal­teri says it will be two good games for his team.

“These will be two good in­ter­na­tional matches against a team we watched in (Caribbean) qual­i­fy­ing ear­lier this year,” said Stal­teri on their web­site. “They are a typ­i­cal Ja­maican team: fast, strong, and phys­i­cal. We will need to adapt quickly in a hot en­vi­ron­ment.”